By H H Mohrmen
The fact that the Green Revolution had very little or no impact on Meghalaya in particular and the North East region in general is obvious to all. The state is still in its infancy when it comes agricultural development. The very fact that Meghalaya still depends on the other states of the country for its daily requirements is a testimony to the hard truth. In spite of the fact that the state is more than four decades old it is yet to be able to support its people’s needs for consumption.
In pre-independent period the region was self sufficient in rice production; in Jaintia Hills the only variety of rice people consumed was red rice. The white polished rice (known as khoo dkhar) was not known then. Apart from rice people also grew varieties of millets as staple food crop; we have stories of our grandparents and parents using both rice and millet as staple food. Perhaps with regard to vegetables apart from the few vegetables that the British had introduced people mostly used wild edibles which included wild vegetables, fruits and mushrooms.
The Khasi-Pnars like any other tribes are meat eaters hence domesticating animals was not new to the people with popular animals being pigs, cows and chicken. These livestock were found aplenty. What people produced in their farms, from rice to vegetable and meat was adequate when compared with what people needed at that point of time, and unlike today people did not have to depend on their neighbours for supply of foodstuff.
People particularly the Pnars did have a history of trading with the plains of now Bangladesh and history tells us that their trade took the people from Jowai to Kolkata via Sylhet, but the trade is not for importing food stuff but other valuable items. Therefore it can be safely concluded that the region was self sufficient when it came to food production.
Soon after Independence and after the creation of the separate hill states population increased while there was no increase in food production and the disparity between demand and supply began to appear. But the Green Revolution which had had a huge impact on the agricultural production in many parts of the country had very less or no impact on food production in the region. Hence till now the state has to import almost every food items from rice, meat, to fish and even vegetables. In fact every time that we have our meal almost all the items on our plates come from outside the state. What should be a major embarrassment for the people of the state that we were traditional animal keepers, yet we still have to import cows, fish and even pigs from other states of the country which are not meat eaters themselves.
We have not only failed to enhance food production but sad to say that we have not even been able to patent or do GI registration of the many unique crops endemic to the region. Except for Narwan oranges which have been GI registered with the initiative of the then DC of East Jaintia hills, Abhishek Bhagotia, we are yet to patent or even GI register our own Lakadong Turmeric which is famous for its high curcumin content. Lakadong and Lakashein are two varieties of Turmeric which can be found in Jaintia hills but Lakadong is of a much superior quality when compared with Lakashein but the problem is with its name. There are two villages with the same name – ‘Lakadong,’ one is Lakadong which is in the Laskein block of West Jaintia hills which is located near Iooksi and the other is Lakadong near Bataw village which is in East Jaintia hills district. We now need to decide the village from where Lakadong Turmeric derived its name before we get the crop GI registered.
The more than three hundred varieties of rice, chillies like sohmyngken khnai/man, Sohmynken Khasi/Pnar and Sohmyngken Lumchnong are yet to be GI registered. Now with the introduction of HYV cucumber, rice and even chillies our fear is that these crops too vanish with time. Our forgotten millet which the world now sees as a climate smart plant is not in the government radar screen as yet. The government is yet to make any consideration to protect and promote this crop which can save us from the vagaries of climate change and we have at least three varieties of millets in Khasi and Jaintia hills.
Agriculture has never received the much needed attention as was given to industries, small scale industries, Khadi Village Industries (KVIC), or even aquaculture, despite the fact that farming is a potential revenue earner and future employment generation sector in the state. Agriculture, agro-based industries and livestock is one of the major avenues which can provide livelihoods to the maximum number of young educated section of the population in the state and the government is yet to take this sector seriously.
The other reason that agriculture did not have the much expected impact on the economy of the farmers is the current policy or the absence of an agriculture policy in the state. Most of the programs especially the central funded schemes follow the top-down approach, the culture; the topography and the climate of the area were never taken into consideration when centrally-sponsored programs or schemes were designed. Most of the programs were designed for farming in the lowland area and not farming in the mountainous region; while farming in Meghalaya in particular and north east in general is mountain agriculture which is very different from lowland agriculture.
The need of the hour is for the state government to start considering having its own agriculture policies and programmes which are mountain-agriculture-specific because that is what we practice and that is where the future of agriculture in the state lies. Consider how hills were cut to make paddy fields in the form of a terrace for rice cultivation with continuous flow of water appropriate for rice cultivation. Then look at the engineering that goes with the irrigation that supplies water to the paddy fields and talking about irrigation the War Jaintias have been using drip irrigations a long time ago for irrigating their betel –leaf plantations.
Mountain-agriculture practice should also respect the wisdom of indigenous agriculture practices which are still being practiced by the people. In our mountain-agriculture policy we should take care of our seeds because they are not only part of our culture; (the practice of seeds keeping and seeds sharing is a tradition in itself) but more importantly if we are in control of our seeds we will be freed from the dependency on HYV seeds supplied by corporations. In mountain-agriculture we should not ignore the importance of wild edibles in our diet because this has sustained us since time immemorial and it will also encourage us to conserve the environment.
Now, after introducing our farmers to modern agricultural practices the government is going gung-ho in its attempt to go organic, as if our traditional agricultural practices were not organic in the first place. Organic farming is not only fashionable but it is what our farmers have been practicing traditionally and farmers can easily change to that traditional farming method in no time and without much ado.
Therefore ours is a best case for conversion to organic because it is nothing but organic to begin with and then the question that farming needs to be certificated to be categorised as organic is redundant because tradition does not need any certification at all. People may call it by any name but the fact remains that people have been practicing organic farming all along till chemical fertilizers, HYV and insecticide were introduced, are our traditional farming practices. Meghalaya need to reconsider its approach in promoting agriculture in the state because agriculture is not only what feeds the hungry stomachs but in our case it can also create employment avenues for our educated unemployed youths.